Valley City State University Institutional Review Board

Purpose of Institutional Review Board (IRB)

To ensure adequate safeguards and to discharge the responsibility of the institution, no research (including grant applications), development, or related activity involving human subjects may be undertaken unless the University Committee appointed for the purpose has reviewed and approved such proposed activity.

IRB Policy

IRB policies are not intended to infringe on the academic freedom of researchers. They are specifically intended to reaffirm that freedom while focusing on protection of human subjects and to comply with federal regulations. Safeguarding the rights and welfare of all those individuals involved as subjects in research, development, or related activities carried out or supervised by members of the faculty and staff of Valley City State University is not only the responsibility of the individual members of the faculty or staff involved, but it ultimately and directly the responsibility of the University.

IRB Definitions as Applied to Requested Research

Definition of Research on Human Subjects: Any systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge based on data obtained from human subjects. This includes both original studies and replications of existing studies performed by faculty, students, or others. The phrase 'considered to involve human subjects' as used in these Policies and Procedures is considered to involve a full range of activities described in this section, and include activities that make use of such things as:

Bodily materials, such as cells, blood or urine, tissues, organs, hair or nail clippings, even if you did not collect these materials
Residual diagnostic specimens, including specimens obtained for routine patient care that would have been discarded if not used for research
Private information, such as medical information, which can be readily identified with individuals, even if the information was not specifically collected for the study in question. Psychological or social research, or research on cell lines or DNA samples that can be associated with individuals fall into this category.

It is important to note that specifically excluded from this definition are activities whose primary focus is on benefiting the individual(s) involved in the procedure.

Activities Included as Research:

Physical, chemical, electrical or psychological stimulation of responses with the human body as well as interview, observation of behavior, administration of tests or other techniques of measurement, examination, or evaluation of individual humans.
Observation of the performance of activities; or of physical or psychological reactions of individual humans or groups of human beings to stimuli which are either controlled by the investigator or are present in a normal non-manipulated environment.
Observation or evaluation of the products of individual performance of tasks or reactions to stimuli in which human beings are directly involved through their active conduct or through giving consent to have procedures performed upon them.

Activities Specifically Excluded: These activities are distinguished from research as understood under the auspices of the IRB, and include activities that may be classified as beneficial services These activities include:

Teaching/training of individuals.
Performance of diagnostic evaluation of individuals which will directly benefit the individual, or the relation of an individual to whom the human participant has agreed to assist, or the mass screening of disease.
Performance of therapeutic procedures for the direct benefit of the individual participating or for the relation of an individual participating as in the interviewing relative to counseling services.

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Office Information

For More Information
Contact the IRB Chair

Terry Corwin, Ph.D.
101 College Street SW
Valley City, ND 58072

Phone: 701.845.7238 or 800.532.8641 ext. 37238
Email: terry.corwin@vcsu.edu